2019, Li, Y., Kovačič, M., Westphalen, J., Oswald, S., Ma, Z., Hänisch, C., Will, P.-A., Jiang, L., Junghaehnel, M., Scholz, R., Lenk, S., Reineke, S.

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) suffer from notorious light trapping, resulting in only moderate external quantum efficiencies. Here, we report a facile, scalable, lithography-free method to generate controllable nanostructures with directional randomness and dimensional order, significantly boosting the efficiency of white OLEDs. Mechanical deformations form on the surface of poly(dimethylsiloxane) in response to compressive stress release, initialized by reactive ions etching with periodicity and depth distribution ranging from dozens of nanometers to micrometers. We demonstrate the possibility of independently tuning the average depth and the dominant periodicity. Integrating these nanostructures into a two-unit tandem white organic light-emitting diode, a maximum external quantum efficiency of 76.3% and a luminous efficacy of 95.7 lm W−1 are achieved with extracted substrate modes. The enhancement factor of 1.53 ± 0.12 at 10,000 cd m−2 is obtained. An optical model is built by considering the dipole orientation, emitting wavelength, and the dipole position on the sinusoidal nanotexture.

2018, Yuan, X., Weyhausen-Brinkmann, F., Martín-Sánchez, J., Piredda, G., Křápek, V., Huo, Y., Huang, H., Schimpf, C., Schmidt, O.G., Edlinger, J., Bester, G., Trotta, R., Rastelli, A.

The optical selection rules in epitaxial quantum dots are strongly influenced by the orientation of their natural quantization axis, which is usually parallel to the growth direction. This configuration is well suited for vertically emitting devices, but not for planar photonic circuits because of the poorly controlled orientation of the transition dipoles in the growth plane. Here we show that the quantization axis of gallium arsenide dots can be flipped into the growth plane via moderate in-plane uniaxial stress. By using piezoelectric strain-actuators featuring strain amplification, we study the evolution of the selection rules and excitonic fine structure in a regime, in which quantum confinement can be regarded as a perturbation compared to strain in determining the symmetry-properties of the system. The experimental and computational results suggest that uniaxial stress may be the right tool to obtain quantum-light sources with ideally oriented transition dipoles and enhanced oscillator strengths for integrated quantum photonics.

2017, Bönisch, M., Panigrahi, A., Stoica, M., Calin, M., Ahrens, E., Zehetbauer, M., Skrotzki, W., Eckert, J.

Ti-Alloys represent the principal structural materials in both aerospace development and metallic biomaterials. Key to optimizing their mechanical and functional behaviour is in-depth know-how of their phases and the complex interplay of diffusive vs. displacive phase transformations to permit the tailoring of intricate microstructures across a wide spectrum of configurations. Here, we report on structural changes and phase transformations of Ti-Nb alloys during heating by in situ synchrotron diffraction. These materials exhibit anisotropic thermal expansion yielding some of the largest linear expansion coefficients (+ 163.9×10-6 to-95.1×10-6 °C-1) ever reported. Moreover, we describe two pathways leading to the precipitation of the α-phase mediated by diffusion-based orthorhombic structures, α″lean and α″iso. Via coupling the lattice parameters to composition both phases evolve into α through rejection of Nb. These findings have the potential to promote new microstructural design approaches for Ti-Nb alloys and β-stabilized Ti-Alloys in general.

2017, Keil, R., Zopf, M., Chen, Y., Höfer, B., Zhang, J., Ding, F., Schmidt, O.G.

Semiconductor InAs/GaAs quantum dots grown by the Stranski-Krastanov method are among the leading candidates for the deterministic generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs. Despite remarkable progress in the past 20 years, many challenges still remain for this material, such as the extremely low yield, the low degree of entanglement and the large wavelength distribution. Here, we show that with an emerging family of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots grown by droplet etching and nanohole infilling, it is possible to obtain a large ensemble of polarization-entangled photon emitters on a wafer without any post-growth tuning. Under pulsed resonant two-photon excitation, all measured quantum dots emit single pairs of entangled photons with ultra-high purity, high degree of entanglement and ultra-narrow wavelength distribution at rubidium transitions. Therefore, this material system is an attractive candidate for the realization of a solid-state quantum repeater - among many other key enabling quantum photonic elements.

2019, Zhang, Y., Holder, T., Ishizuka, H., de Juan, F., Nagaosa, N., Felser, C., Yan, B.

The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) rectifies light into the dc current in a single-phase material and attracts the interest to design high-efficiency solar cells beyond the pn junction paradigm. Because it is a hot electron effect, the BPVE surpasses the thermodynamic Shockley–Queisser limit to generate above-band-gap photovoltage. While the guiding principle for BPVE materials is to break the crystal centrosymmetry, here we propose a magnetic photogalvanic effect (MPGE) that introduces the magnetism as a key ingredient and induces a giant BPVE. The MPGE emerges from the magnetism-induced asymmetry of the carrier velocity in the band structure. We demonstrate the MPGE in a layered magnetic insulator CrI3, with much larger photoconductivity than any previously reported results. The photocurrent can be reversed and switched by controllable magnetic transitions. Our work paves a pathway to search for magnetic photovoltaic materials and to design switchable devices combining magnetic, electronic, and optical functionalities.

2018, Chen, Y., Zopf, M., Keil, R., Ding, F., Schmidt, O.G.

Many quantum photonic technologies require the efficient generation of entangled pairs of photons, but to date there have been few ways to produce them reliably. Sources based on parametric down conversion operate at very low efficiency per pulse due to the probabilistic generation process. Semiconductor quantum dots can emit single pairs of entangled photons deterministically but they fall short due to the extremely low-extraction efficiency. Strategies for extracting single photons from quantum dots, such as embedding them in narrowband optical cavities, are difficult to translate to entangled photons. Here, we build a broadband optical antenna with an extraction efficiency of 65% ± 4% and demonstrate a highly-efficient entangled-photon source by collecting strongly entangled photons (fidelity of 0.9) at a pair efficiency of 0.372 ± 0.002 per pulse. The high brightness achieved by our source represents a step forward in the development of optical quantum technologies.

2018, Zhang, X., Li, W., Feng, L., Chen, X., Hansen, A., Grimme, S., Fortier, S., Sergentu, D.-C., Duignan, T.J., Autschbach, J., Wang, S., Wang, Y., Velkos, G., Popov, A.A., Aghdassi, N., Duhm, S., Li, X., Li, J., Echegoyen, L., Schwarz, W.H.E., Chen, N.

Unsupported non-bridged uranium-carbon double bonds have long been sought after in actinide chemistry as fundamental synthetic targets in the study of actinide-ligand multiple bonding. Here we report that, utilizing I h(7)-C80 fullerenes as nanocontainers, a diuranium carbide cluster, U=C=U, has been encapsulated and stabilized in the form of UCU@I h(7)-C80. This endohedral fullerene was prepared utilizing the Krätschmer-Huffman arc discharge method, and was then co-crystallized with nickel(II) octaethylporphyrin (NiII-OEP) to produce UCU@I h(7)-C80·[NiII-OEP] as single crystals. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals a cage-stabilized, carbide-bridged, bent UCU cluster with unexpectedly short uranium-carbon distances (2.03 Å) indicative of covalent U=C double-bond character. The quantum-chemical results suggest that both U atoms in the UCU unit have formal oxidation state of +5. The structural features of UCU@I h(7)-C80 and the covalent nature of the U(f1)=C double bonds were further affirmed through various spectroscopic and theoretical analyses.

2018, Baek, S.-H., Bhoi, D., Nam, W., Lee, B., Efremov, D.V., Büchner, B., Kim, K.H.

Strong interplay of spin and charge/orbital degrees of freedom is the fundamental characteristic of the iron-based superconductors (FeSCs), which leads to the emergence of a nematic state as a rule in the vicinity of the antiferromagnetic state. Despite intense debate for many years, however, whether nematicity is driven by spin or orbital fluctuations remains unsettled. Here, by use of transport, magnetization, and 75As nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements, we show a striking transformation of the relationship between nematicity and spin fluctuations (SFs) in Na1-x Li x FeAs; For x ≤ 0.02, the nematic transition promotes SFs. In contrast, for x ≥ 0.03, the system undergoes a non-magnetic phase transition at a temperature T 0 into a distinct nematic state that suppresses SFs. Such a drastic change of the spin fluctuation spectrum associated with nematicity by small doping is highly unusual, and provides insights into the origin and nature of nematicity in FeSCs.

2017, Boehnke, A., Martens, U., Sterwerf, C., Niesen, A., Huebner, T., Von Der Ehe, M., Meinert, M., Kuschel, T., Thomas, A., Heiliger, C., Münzenberg, M., Reiss, G.

Spin caloritronics studies the interplay between charge-, heat- and spin-currents, which are initiated by temperature gradients in magnetic nanostructures. A plethora of new phenomena has been discovered that promises, e.g., to make wasted heat in electronic devices useable or to provide new read-out mechanisms for information. However, only few materials have been studied so far with Seebeck voltages of only some microvolt, which hampers applications. Here, we demonstrate that half-metallic Heusler compounds are hot candidates for enhancing spin-dependent thermoelectric effects. This becomes evident when considering the asymmetry of the spin-split density of electronic states around the Fermi level that determines the spin-dependent thermoelectric transport in magnetic tunnel junctions. We identify Co2FeAl and Co2FeSi Heusler compounds as ideal due to their energy gaps in the minority density of states, and demonstrate devices with substantially larger Seebeck voltages and tunnel magneto-Seebeck effect ratios than the commonly used Co-Fe-B-based junctions.

2018, Zhou, J., Zhu, H., Liu, T.-H., Song, Q., He, R., Mao, J., Liu, Z., Ren, W., Liao, B., Singh, D.J., Ren, Z., Chen, G.

Modern society relies on high charge mobility for efficient energy production and fast information technologies. The power factor of a material-the combination of electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient-measures its ability to extract electrical power from temperature differences. Recent advancements in thermoelectric materials have achieved enhanced Seebeck coefficient by manipulating the electronic band structure. However, this approach generally applies at relatively low conductivities, preventing the realization of exceptionally high-power factors. In contrast, half-Heusler semiconductors have been shown to break through that barrier in a way that could not be explained. Here, we show that symmetry-protected orbital interactions can steer electron-acoustic phonon interactions towards high mobility. This high-mobility regime enables large power factors in half-Heuslers, well above the maximum measured values. We anticipate that our understanding will spark new routes to search for better thermoelectric materials, and to discover high electron mobility semiconductors for electronic and photonic applications.